The Town of The Blue Mountains has a new development charges bylaw.
At its meeting on April 15, The Blue Mountains council voted 7-0 to adopt a new development charges bylaw for the municipality. The new bylaw has been working its way through the approvals process for several weeks and had to be passed by April 24 before the previous bylaw expired.
The new bylaw was a controversial subject in the town and was heavily criticized by a number of development industry representatives. The bylaw includes sharp increases to the development charges the town collects.
The new town-wide residential rate is now $35,041 and the new town-wide non-residential rates are set at $137.12.
Development charges in The Blue Mountains vary depending on the area in the town in which the development is located.
The town charges a town-wide rate, but also has 11 area-specific development charges - Craigleith, Castle Glen, Osler, Thornbury East, Thornbury West, Clarksburg, Lora Bay service area 1, Lora Bay service area 2, Lora Bay service area 3, Camperdown and Swiss Meadows - in its bylaw. The complete list of charges for each area in the proposed bylaw can be found online here.
The passage of the new bylaw came after one final curveball tossed at the town by the provincial government. Earlier this year, the government announced significant changes to how development charges could be collected by municipalities. Major changes included: development charges bylaws would now be in place 10 years – up from five years previously, new development charges rates would be phased in over five years and municipalities could no longer use development charges to fund studies to determine the scope of future projects.
The province announced recently it was backing off the five-year phase in requirement and that studies would again be eligible to be funded by development charges.
Coun. June Porter asked staff if the town would have to amend the new bylaw once the province formally legislates the changes.
“Is there an opportunity to open the bylaw?” Porter asked.
Sam Dinsmore, acting director of finance/treasurer, said the bylaw is written in a way that it will automatically adjust to the provincial changes once they are enshrined as law.
“We can charge the full rates. There will be no need to open our bylaw at that time,” said Dinsmore.
